Depending on who one asks, and there is still a lot of latitude for pessimism, Germany and the rest of the EU have successfully staved off the worst of the financial cataclysm and are on their way to recovery. This is in stark contrast to the situation in the US, and it is in part at least owing to the extant social-safety-net, which keeps people from being evicted and turned out on the streets and did not need to debate some slap-dash welfare program, financial regulations that curtail the excessive accumulation of power for companies and temper share-holder decision, keeping executive salaries from escaping to unreal levels, a more patient and sounder fiscal policy.
The EU has its share of imperfections and there are still incidents of voracious greed and abject poverty, but the biggest and most stable difference between the two and economic prosperity is that the EU has a manufacturing base and produces tangible things. Measured just by its spun-up services industry, the USA is about like nouveau riche Dubai. Even little Liechtenstein, in addition to banking, has a healthy business in making dentures and artificial teeth. Stock market fluctuations are driven for the most part by knee-jerk computer programming that buys or sells by fiat once a certain threshold is met, and the stock markets as well as the varied basket of other economic health indicators do not really tell much of a story, if businesses cannot be coaxed into hiring or unfreezing excess funding they are holding on tightly to as insurance against deflation.
Only generation of revenue, both personal and commercial, marks real change and backs up currency's value. Like the oil barons of the Mid-East, Russian oligarchs and American robber-barons are dismissive of the EU as antiquated, but as H pointed out, Europe may not be as flashy or dynamic but has been doing what it has been doing for centuries and without oil, bubbles and busts.
